Warrior Forum Scams Freelancer.com for $3.2 Million

I got an email this morning from some fella named ‘Allen Says’ with the subject ‘Warrior Forum joins the Freelancer.com Family’, so I took the bait and opened it up. I quickly learned that this guy was the founder of WarriorForum.com and he pawned the Warrior Forum for a cool $3.2 Million.

At first I thought it was some late April Fools joke, but after some investigation I learn that this transaction is real and Freelancer.com is now the proud owner of 730,000 members at the Warrior Forum.. Scams included.

The $3.2 million cash acquisition price was funded by existing cash reserves that Freelancer already had and the price was based on the annual revenue of Warrior Forum’s sales times 3. Which means that Warrior Forum’s average annual income is around $1,066,666.67 per year. Many people around the internet were surprised at this annual income as they thought the website earned way more than this. I am personally not surprised at this annual income considering the low value the website brings.

According to reports made by an intern at NorthShore Advisory, their revenue model is based on forum access fees, self-serve advertising and listing fees for marketplace items posted in the forum by registered users. As far as I know, the Warrior Forum doesn’t get a commission from the WSO sales.

Immediate Changes to Warrior Forum

Matt Barrie, who is the Chief Executive of Freelancer.com posted within the announcement thread at Warrior Forum stating that some quick changes will be happening with some of the costs:

All WSO listings will now be reduced from $40 to $20

All current War Room members will have their 20 year membership extended to lifetime, immediately.

Moving forward new memberships will be $20 per year.

With the WSO listings being reduced to $20, my prediction is that there are going to be a swarm of low value borderline scams pop-up within the WSO section of the website and many members will not be happy with the end result. Could this be the downfall of the WSO? Time will certainly tell.

The other thing that really bugs me is that Matt Barrie said: “Being the world’s #1 Internet marketing forum, Warrior Forum provides the existing Freelancer community a complementary community based platform to interact and transact- enhancing user engagement in an important segment of work being performed in our online services marketplace.”

Do you seriously think that Warrior Forum is the world’s #1 Internet marketing forum? I don’t think so. If you want to join an awesome internet marketing business community then check out this place.

Why Did Freelancer.com Buy Warrior Forum?

Freelancer.com is a publicly traded company on the The Australian Securities Exchange and my guess was to bring value to their stock price. But as the same day of the announcement, their stock seems to be going down a bit. Have a look:

Source: ASX

Yikes! That line does not look good. Do you think Freelancer.com has buyers remorse? It will be interesting to see how the two websites shall merge and what the long term strategy will be. But at the end of the day, I think Freelancer.com made a mistake buying the Warrior Forum as it’s going to tarnish any reputation that Freelancer has.

So now that you know about this acquisition, are you going to continue to use Warrior Forum and/or Freelancer.com? Let me know your thoughts below.

CHANGE THE DIRECTION OF YOUR CURRENT INCOMEAND DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT

Reader Interactions

Comments

Wow, big news. Who knows, maybe Freelancer will actually clean up Warrior Forum, and build value within the community. The price drop on WSO listings would seem to indicate otherwise.

I have been a Warrior Forum member for years. When I started my Internet Marketing journey, it was known as “The” place to be. I have seen the value deteriorate over time, so much that I rarely visit anymore. While there are some WSO’s from trusted creators, the standard seems to have fallen to really crappy, low end products heavily dependent on high priced upsells.

Today I find much more value in blogs from IM people that I trust, Google+ communities, and Wealthy Affiliate.

Freelancer has created an international acquisition strategy giving freelancers additional resources. Prefer freelance communities staying organic, but it seems Freelancer is on a mission.
As an internet marketer, don’t trust Warrior Forum. They will operate independently giving Freelance more leverage in their next acquisition, possibly BlackHatWorld?
As a freelancer waiting to see what will happen next at the BlackHatWorld Conference.

I had no idea that Freelancer was a publicly traded company! I might have bought it, but seeing that they are buying WF I would definitely think twice. I don’t think I’ve ever seen an honest dollar made from anything promoted on WF.

Lol good one Jay,
I’m surprised Warrior Forum only makes about 1mil a year, it certainly looks like they’re making a lot though. I was one of those members believing in those cheap WSO because as newbie, I thought they were honest people trying to help us little people. Glad I’m not part of that anymore 🙂

Wow, your article really surprised me a lot, I never knew that warrior forum made that much of money every year which is pretty surprising.

Yes I have received a mail from Allan about this news and I have also thought it will be a scam but it is true, oh no. Now the warrior forum will not be any more Internet marketing forum it will be changed to freelancers forum.

The question to ask why this person Allan sold warrior forum to freelancer it does not make sense and why do he want to sale it, I think he is marking a big mistake.

WF has required a shake up for years but it has never happened.
Freelancer will soon realize that they should not have bought this website, ‘best internet marketing forum’, does make me laugh.
It’s full of people who think they are experts and sell rehashed garbage.
Hopefully something good will come out of it but I very much doubt it!

Thanks Neil,
I think the only good thing that will come out is make other forums and communities shine. But Warrior members are very dedicated and protect their posts/threads etc. so perhaps nothing will be changed.

I just noticed that Freelancer.com is “boasting” about the purchase of the top Internet Marketing Community in the world on their Facebook page.

I don’t think Freelancerr realize what they are getting themselves into here and realize that this entire base they have just purchased is full of a group that have ulterior motives (selling their “get rich quick” products/tools) and the unfortunate folks (usually newbies) that buy into these scams.

As you have said, there is no way that credit card companies/processors and perhaps even authorities aren’t aware about the Warrior Forum fraud/trickery/scams that have been taking place within Warrior forum for far too long.

I don’t think this will have an immediate impact of the Freelancer.com brand, but over time it definitely will…in particular if they try to merge the systems and communities as one.

Freelancer = Next Clickbank?

Guess only time will tell how this acquisition plays out, a surprising play by Freelancer though in my opinion.

Nice to read this article. I too got an email from Allen and Matt. about the new owner and Some changes in the Listings and war room memberships. At the beginning I thought WF is earning more than that which I have seen today . And I think selling this warrior forum is not good idea in my opinion.

As a product seller in the Warrior Forum, I have mixed
feelings on this one.

I feel the WF is to honest product creators, what eBay
is/was to collectors of valuable items that had prices drop.

It can take weeks to put anything worthwhile together,
and the “big dawgs” in the Warrior Forum suggest that
our price should be $7…come on!

Plus the WF is full of scammers that steal people’s
PayPal information to buy products. The account
holder is reimbursed from the product creators
PayPal account, and there is no way to recoop it
from the affiliate that made the sale.

It takes a lot of patience to learn the pros and cons
in the WF, so hopefully FreeLancer can do something
to clean it up.

Thanks for sharing this Jay, I had no idea! I’ve fallen for so many scams from WF in the past. I haven’t done that in a couple of years though. Thank goodness I didn’t purchase a membership, I used to think about doing that but for some reason I felt uneasy about it.

I will stick with WA! I have learned so much in such a short time at WA (and I’ve been learning as time allows).

I was a WF member way back when Allen Says started the place, and it used to be a
great place. I met a lot of very wonderful people there, and learned a lot back then.

I left the internet marketing World back around 2009 or so because I was getting
sick of all the crap involved just to try to make a few bucks online anymore. I came
back this year to have a look around, and went to the WF to see what was what, and
what a mess it is over there!

I figured this type of thing was going to happen back around 2007 or 08 or so, it
actually happened a lot later than I thought it would. Allen had been missing in
action for a long time, and I thought he was moving on to other things in life.

I haven’t seen nor heard anything of Allen Says online in years. And the WF had been
going down the tubes for a long time. I stuck around for as long as I did because
there were a lot of people I knew still hanging out there, and I got along well with
them.

But since coming back online this year, I can see things have completely fallen apart
over there. The WSOs I see now are selling everything an anything, and it won’t take
long, and that place will be an ash pit of nothing but scammers and left overs from
the 90’s. There used to be a pretty strict WSO policy, and they wouldn’t let you sell
just anything at all. In fact, I remember a time when more WSO’s got turned down
then they let in. But of course, that was before they started charging a fee! Now, like
everything else in the World, it’s all about the money!

I came back online to try at internet marketing again after trying it for 12 years of 18
hour days, and getting nowhere fast. But after looking things over, I can see better
things are sitting in my garage to make money from, then anything that can be
offered to me online!

There are literally 10’s of thousands of people all trying to find the gold at the end
of the internet rainbow, but all they’re going to find is a pile of lead! Don’t get me
wrong, lead is good for boat anchors, but doesn’t work so well for internet
marketing… unless you can find a market in need of a lot of boat anchors online!

And this article created just to push another marketing forum? Seriously? More
nonsense for the beginners to spend their hard earned money on!

There is no gold to be found online! Yes, there will always be the lucky few who find
great success, and then continue that success by trying to sell info to the dummies
at the bottom who’ll believe anything. Oh look at my PayPal account, or Look at the
check I receive every other day for $100,000! Pfft! whatever!

Had I saved the thousands of dollars I have spent online trying to find financial
success since the year 2000, I’d be semi-rich right now! Let that be a warning to the
many of you who’re even remotely thinking of joining the internet rat race!

At the end of the day, internet marketing success is no different then finding success
as an actor or musician. There will always be people out there that are better, and
really deserve the chance at success, but never find it for whatever reason, but that’s
just the way it is. If you’re at the right place, at the right time, with the right product
to push, it may be your turn at success. But probably not!

Wow, this is some really interesting stuff! I used to think that Warrior Forum was the “Bees knees” of the Internet Marketing world. Probably because I didn’t know enough about what I was actually doing. Over time, I quickly learned that although not all, but a vast majority of the site became a cesspool for cheap fluff and flat out scams. It is a nightmare destination for anyone that has “shiny object” syndrome in trying to start a legitimate online business that is actually profitable. It is filled with “get rich quick” types of offers and cookie cutter “done for you” websites that are duplicated a million times and handed over with literally zero guidance. I am very glad that is all in my past. Occasionally, I will meander back over to WF just to see what’s going on and potentially warn newbies of wasting their time on the next shiny object when they can be building a legitimate online business on their own. It can be an overwhelming and dangerous place for a newbie to land so if any of my fellow WA members are seeking information outside of WA (which is more than fine), I would HIGHLY suggest being careful if you stumble upon the Warrior Forum. The one positive of that place is that if you dig around, you can sometimes get honest feedback about certain products and programs out there from real people who have tried it already and avoid letting curiosity get the best of you. Thanks again for sharing this information. I was completely unaware and I am quite surprised. Any update on the progress of things with Freelancer since this acquisition? Thanks!

I’d post regularly to the Warrior Forum back in the day (have over 1,000 posts) but I’m so busy running my affiliate marketing business I don’t have the time to hang around on forums anymore. I wish them all the best!